1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to signal intelligence systems and, more specifically, to a Method and Apparatus for Enhancing the Speed of Wideband Signal Search Systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Present day military-grade signal collection and surveillance equipment devices are built to capture communications from enemy radios as well as known and/or clandestine sources. The interception of various wireless communications is a critical signals intelligence function that is vital for national security interests. The problem with prior art signal search and collection is that some of the more modern transmission waveforms are made to intentionally be difficult to detect. These signals are rotating in frequency faster, and across wider frequency ranges, than ever before. Present day signal search systems, with today's A/D converters, cannot capture these signals in one tuning band while simultaneously maintaining the maximum dynamic range. In addition, many modern military-grade transmissions also “hop” across wide ranges of frequencies continually to further avoid detection. Thus, signals collection systems must become more agile in order to first detect and collect these more modern transmissions without compromising on dynamic range. The state of the art today is that modern A/D converters can achieve spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) values close to 100 dB but only at bandwidths of less than 40 MHz.
The invention of this patent application describes a unique way of enhancing the search speed of wideband signal detection systems. This provides the ability to rarely ever miss any signal, even if they are extremely fast moving and are frequency hopping over a vast range of RF spectrum. As mentioned, the invention of this patent application is an extension and augmentation to a previously filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/829,858: “Method And Apparatus For The Intelligent And Automatic Gathering of Sudden Short Duration Communications Signals”, also written by this author. That patent will be referenced continually throughout this patent application, and the disclosure therein is incorporated herein by reference.
What is needed therefore in order to feasibly detect and collect more modern and faster signals is a system that not only as: 1) The abilities stated in the aforementioned previous patent application Ser. No. 10/829,858 (i.e. the ability to perform wideband detection of short duration communications signals), but also 2) The ability of pipeline processing and tuning functions at the same time, and 3) The ability to control all of this logic automatically in real-time, and finally 4) The ability to precisely synchronize internal dataflows to accommodate the faster processing rates. The apparatus of this patent application provides such a System. In conclusion, insofar as 1 am aware, no invention formerly developed provides this unique method to create a hyper fast wideband signals collection system. The technique uses an innovative multi voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) approach, coupled with pipelined wideband digitization stages.